“Fine. Just do your best. Do you happen to know roughly where the men’s tuxedo rental store is?”
“Hmm. I think it’s upstairs.”
“I know that. But it’s a gigantic mall.”
“I can drop you by a big-name department store. I’m sure it’s near one of those. My wife usually starts on the ground floor and then rides the store elevator so she can shop for towels and stuff before she checks out the little shops on the second level.”
“Fine. But I have to get out at the main entrance. I’m meeting somebody.”
“Everybody should have stayed home tonight,” the driver said with a chuckle. “It’s rainin’ cats and dogs.”
Grace barely glanced at him. She was peering out at traffic and counting the side streets, trying to determine how close they were to their destination, since falling water obscured the street signs.
“Know where that saying came from?” he asked pleasantly, looking over his shoulder at the children. “Guess.”
Beth was pouting but Brandon was willing to play. “God put dogs in the clouds?”
“Nope. Good guess though. In the olden days, when roofs were made out of bundles of straw, mice would hide in the straw and make nests. Dogs and cats went up there to chase them, and when it rained hard like this and the straw got slippery, they sometimes fell through.” He guffawed. “Can you imagine? Raining cats and dogs. Right into the house!”
“Wow.” Brandon was awed though not convinced. “Is that so, Mama?”
“What? Oh, yes. I think so.”
“I want a roof with dogs and cats in it,” the toddler said.
At that moment Grace would have settled for any kind of protection from the deluge, with or without animals. She dreaded having to get the kids out of the cab and make a run for the mall. Beth would stay relatively dry but she and Brandon were bound to be drenched.
The driver turned and entered the first Galleria driveway they came to. Grace was so anxious by that time she had to stop herself from pounding on the dash with her fists and yelling for him to go faster. She clenched her hands so tightly that her nails bit into her palms.
“Please hurry.”
“There’s a slow speed limit in here, lady. I have to keep the rules.”
Rules, Grace thought, chagrined. Always more rules. And seemingly positioned to cause her difficulty, as usual, she added.
She’d stuffed a few necessities into her pockets rather than tote a purse and had set her phone on vibrate. Pulling out some folding money, she checked the cell phone in case the movement of the taxi had kept her from noticing. No one had called. Not even the marshals, meaning their plans to meet her at the entrance were still on. “Here we are, nice and dry,” the driver told her, smiling. “Want help getting the kids out?”
“No. I can do it. Thanks.”
They’d stopped under a portico and Grace was disappointed that she couldn’t spot whoever was supposed to meet her.
Paying the driver and grabbing her children by the hands, she waited for the automatic door to sense her, then rushed through the gap before it was finished opening. There were plenty of shoppers on hand but none looked the least bit like a marshal or a local cop. Now what? She couldn’t hand her children over to a stranger, so she’d have to keep them with her, at least for the present. Logic said she’d encounter the authorities soon. There was no time to waste if she hoped to be on hand when Kyle was released.
Brandon’s feet were barely touching the floor on each third or fourth stride and Beth wasn’t even trying to keep pace so Grace ended up practically dragging both of them.
Ahead lay an up escalator. She almost collided with an aisle display of fragrant lotions as she zigzagged her way toward it. Beth was whimpering. Giggling, Brandon seemed delighted to be on such an exciting adventure.
“Fingers off the rail so they don’t get pinched,” Grace announced, stepping onto the bottom step as it rose. Beth landed on the second one back while Brandon was hoisted up next to Grace. “Beth. Keep up.”
The girl began to sniffle instead. Grace was able to reason well enough, despite her current frenzy, to guess what Beth’s problem was. And the child was right. They should do all they could to keep from attracting undue attention. Reaching back, she grabbed the pointed top of the black plastic bag, jerked it free and crumpled it up. “There. Better?”
The red curls bobbed an emphatic yes.
“Good. Now keep close to me. I mean it. This is very important. And if either of you spot your daddy, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you. Understand?”
“Where’s Daddy?” the little boy asked.
“I don’t know yet. We’re going to try to find him but it’s a game, like hide-and-seek. If we see him we have to hide and wait for him to find us. We can’t run up to him and make a lot of noise or it will spoil everything.”
Although both children nodded, Grace was far from reassured. She was not only going to have to find Dylan without him seeing her, she was going to have to try to keep the kids from blowing her cover until she could turn them over to the marshals for safekeeping, as planned.
If they had set a trap for the criminals, she didn’t want to inadvertently put her family or any bystanders in harm’s way.
Stepping off the escalator and making sure her children were in the clear, Grace momentarily scanned the landing for possible threats as well as allies. One of her biggest problems was deciding who were the bad guys, who might be undercover cops and which were regular shoppers. Half the folks she saw right now looked sinister and nobody looked a bit like a U.S. marshal or a police officer.
That was not good. Not good at all.
* * *
Dylan couldn’t stand still one more second. He strolled slowly to the stainless-steel railing that bordered the second-floor walkway and looked down. The mall wasn’t nearly as crowded as he’d expected it to be, probably due to the nasty storm.
Since he didn’t know how far Kyle’s kidnappers were going to have to come to join him, he insisted it wasn’t a bad sign if they were a little late. He would wait. No matter how long it took.
He was about to return to the storefront when he thought he glimpsed a flash of familiar hair color. Kyle? The sight was so fleeting he wondered if his brain was playing tricks on him. It was entirely possible that, because he so wanted to be with his son, he was imagining seeing him. That had to be what had happened. The red color was no longer visible no matter how hard he stared into the distance.
One step away from the rail, then two. On the third he felt a presence at his elbow and heard a man’s deep voice say, “Just keep walking.”
“Wait! Where’s my son? Where’s Kyle?”
“I’m taking you to him.”
“I thought we were going to make the trade here.”
“That was the plan until the weather turned. The boss figured we’d have trouble getting away on account of all this rain, so you and me ’re gonna take a little ride.”
“Okay.”
If Dylan had had law-enforcement backup waiting to capture the kidnappers he would have worried about leaving the mall. In this case, it didn’t matter. The way he had things figured, he’d be fortunate to live long enough to see Kyle released. After all, if these men wanted to insure his silence, there was no better way than to kill him quickly. He only hoped the deposition he’d recorded for the marshals would be enough to get a conviction and break up the baby-stealing ring.
Instead of leading him to the escalator or elevator, as he’d expected, the thug shoved him through a door marked Maintenance. No Admittance.
The bang of the door slamming echoed along a deserted back stairway that led to the main floor. Instead of reentering the public area of the mall, however, they continued to descend.
A black SUV was waiting in an underground p
arking garage, its motor running, when Dylan and his companion reached the end of the line.
“Let the boy go here,” Dylan ordered. “Just point him to the stairs and he’ll be fine.”
Both his captors laughed. The driver snorted while the other man forced Dylan into the vehicle at gunpoint.
To his horror and despair, they were the only ones present. There was no sign of Kyle.
* * *
Grace gave thanks when she spotted her husband. She took her eyes off him for mere moments. When she looked back, he was gone!
Scooping up Brandon so she could move faster, she ordered Beth, “Keep up with me,” and increased her pace. If she got too close she might ruin Dylan’s plans but she had to be near enough to see what was happening. And to take charge of Kyle, she added, feeling her pulse jump even higher than it already was.
She stepped into the doorway of a home décor shop, then eased out just enough to scan the walkway ahead. No Dylan. And no marshals, either.
Dismayed, she took the time to evaluate each person she could see from there. Several looked familiar. When Serena Summers turned around and spoke into her cell phone, Grace gasped. They were here, after all. So what had become of Dylan?
One more look satisfied Grace. She stepped into view and started to approach Summers, noting that Josh McCall was with her.
Marshal McCall scowled at Grace before speaking to the man beside him. “Tell our people to call off the search in her neighborhood. We’ve got her.” His gaze met and held Grace’s. “What are you doing, Mrs. Appleby? Don’t you think your husband can get into enough trouble on his own?”
“I told you people I was coming here.” She stood tall, demonstrating courage and determined to prove her reasons were valid. “I didn’t intend to sit home where I’d be defenseless.”
Marshal Summers inclined her head to her partner. “I told you what would happen if we didn’t put an agent in her house with her immediately. You just don’t understand women, Josh.”
“If the local cops had been on the ball they’d have pulled her cab over long before she got here.” He waved at a uniformed, female officer. “Over here.”
Grace figured the marshal was planning to hand her over to the police and had already decided how she was going to react. As soon as the deputy joined them she forced a smile and presented her children. “This is Beth,” Grace said, placing her hand first on the girl’s head, then on the boy’s. “This is Brandon. I’m going to trust you with them.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” McCall countered loudly. “I want this officer to take all three of you to the station. You’ll wait there until I tell you it’s safe to leave.”
“Are you going to arrest me?” Grace asked, facing him with her hands fisted on her hips. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to be right behind you while you track Dylan. You wouldn’t have a clue about where he was if I hadn’t helped you. You owe me.”
“How do you know he’s not in the tuxedo shop?”
“Because you’re not trying to stay out of sight. If he hadn’t left you’d still be in hiding, waiting for his contact to show up.”
Serena Summers smiled. “She’s got you there.”
“Yeah.” McCall turned aside to speak into a radio. “Parking garage? Lower level? Copy. Pick us up there.”
“Our lookouts spotted Dylan being shoved into a black SUV. There was no sign of the boy.” He motioned to a nearby security guard. “We’ll need the fastest way to reach the basement garage.”
“Follow me.”
Grace could tell that the elderly guard was excited to play even a small part in such an important operation. She was deathly nervous, herself, with a roiling queasiness topped by wave after wave of despair. Any time she allowed herself to picture Dylan and Kyle facing peril, she wanted to break down and weep.
I will not cry, she insisted, biting her lip for distraction and joining the party of marshals, officers and mall security guards.
It was not hard to keep up with them. The difficulty lay in keeping her balance and convincing her knees to support her. Every nerve in her body was tingling. Every step was a supreme effort. Every breath was insufficient to the point of wanting to gasp for air.
They reached the garage in a group. McCall commandeered the first of three black sedans and climbed in with his driver and the tech who was monitoring the tracking chip in Dylan’s boot.
Summers took Grace’s arm. “You ride with me. What Josh doesn’t know won’t hurt him and I know better than to try to ditch you.”
“I won’t get in your way, I promise. I just have to be there for my little boy.”
“And his father?”
Nodding, Grace sighed and whispered a heartfelt, “Yes.”
Summers slammed her door and gave the signal to follow the lead vehicle. You could have knocked Grace over with a feather when the marshal twisted in her seat and asked, “Do you know why I’m letting you come along?”
Grace was fumbling to fasten the seat belt. “No.”
“Because you place love and loyalty above your own well-being. Just don’t make me sorry I brought you.”
“I won’t,” Grace vowed. Silently she also promised she would not stand by and watch while her family was further damaged. The situation was already so dire she feared they would never be whole again, never find the happiness that had once been within their grasp.
To make that journey, to reach completeness, Grace knew they must all arrive safely on the other side of this theoretical test of fire. Like Daniel in the lion’s den, she must trust in the Lord or be consumed by evil.
That concept might sound overly dramatic to someone who had never experienced the kinds of trials she was facing, who had managed to sail through life relatively easily, but for Grace it was almost an understatement.
She could not articulate her faith as well as some believers did, yet reliance upon Christ was so much a part of her being she knew she would fail miserably without Him.
What about success? she wondered. Was that going to come in the manner she had prayed for? Or should she prepare for the worst?
Realizing that her inner peace was not dependent upon the external, she took a deep breath and tried to see the current situation from God’s perspective, to imagine what solution He might choose and to ready herself to accept it.
She clasped her hands, squeezed her eyes closed and bit her lower lip, trying to blot out the agonizing mental picture of a life without her firstborn son and his father at her side.
It was impossible. Her mind refused to release the picture and move forward into the unknown.
TWENTY
The lights of downtown Houston were left behind as the SUV bearing Dylan and his captors raced into the rainy night. Sheets of water dashed against the windshield so hard and fast that the wipers could not keep up.
“You tryin’ to get us killed?” the thug in the rear seat with Dylan shouted.
“No. I’m tryin’ to keep the cops from catchin’ us,” the driver yelled back. “You wanna drive?”
By this point, Dylan had decided that the wisest thing he could do was sit tight and wait. It was evident from his captors’ conversation that they were not the brains of this operation. Not even close. Therefore, he still had hope that he’d ultimately be able to free Kyle and return him to his mother.
And beyond that? He refused to plan ahead even a few moments. If he had learned anything during this trying experience, it was that life was fleeting. The Bible said a man’s days were numbered and the more time he spent dealing with his current dilemma, the more certain he was that his were about to end.
Dylan gritted his teeth as the heavy car bumped along a rutted, pothole-pitted dirt track. Even with the overhanging clouds and pelting rain to distort his view, Dylan knew there was no artificial light
outside the vehicle. Wherever they were taking him, it was definitely secluded and probably well hidden from prying eyes. Or those of the police, he added, chagrined.
The driver had been leaning over the steering wheel for several miles, peering out as if expecting to spot someone or something. Lightning flashed. He jerked, straightened and hit the brakes. “There! I see him.”
“About time,” the man on Dylan’s left remarked. “I’ll be glad to get rid of this guy. He’s creepin’ me out.”
“How so?”
“He’s too quiet, like he’s makin’ plans or something.”
“Won’t make any difference if he is. This is the end of the line.”
When the man poked a gun into his ribs and laughed, it sent a shiver of dread down Dylan’s spine and caused him to tense every muscle. Assuming something deadly was going to happen and hearing it actually spoken about were two very different things. It seemed inconceivable after he’d come this far, had learned so much about his own character and had rededicated his life to the Lord, that it would soon end. Where was the sense in that? Where was the divine grace?
That word snapped him out of his doldrums. His Gracie was the key to it all. It was for her and their children that he had put himself in so much jeopardy. And it was for them that he would take whatever punishment his captors dished out.
I don’t want to leave them behind, Dylan prayed silently, unable to form the kind of perfect plea that others in church often presented. He figured he was doing well to think at all, let alone come across as lucid, when a loaded automatic was aimed at him and he was about to be thrown to the wolves, so to speak.
The headlights of the SUV outlined a dark form that was almost fully hidden by the falling rain. Dylan couldn’t tell much about the car they were rendezvousing with, other than the fact it looked equal in size and shape to the one in which he was traveling.
“You guys sit tight till I make sure he wants to do it here,” the driver ordered.
Family in Hiding Page 19